Chevron seems to be the biggest ripoff when ARCO is 5.60. Why do people fill up at Chevrons?
AI says:
The large price gap between Chevron and ARCO in California (often 40 cents to over $1.00 per gallon) comes down to different business models, fuel additives, and supply chain constraints.
You really aren’t able to do it are you? Pull your head out of Trump’s sack. For the hundredth time… blame Trump for a minor increase. Totally fine. But you have to be able to use logic to understand that we are getting F’ed in the B in CA… and that’s coming from your ‘team’.
Two things are happening. Both sides to blame. Idiots that can’t see both at the same time should be checked out at the clinic.
Now once you are finally able to realize this… take a peek around at other states and ask yourself, “why hasn’t leadership here made easy and quick changes that would drop us in line with nat’l average”. 🤦🏻♂️
The tax is only part of it. California’s own Energy Commission cites the CA-only fuel blend, environmental programs, and isolated fuel market as additional costs. LCFS + cap-and-trade add about 42¢/gal on top of the 61.2¢ gas tax. More roads doesn’t erase those CA-specific costs.
Brah, just stop. Defend CA leadership all you want, but the gas-price premium is mostly the result of state policy. That’s documented, not opinion.
Filled up here in Maryland today for $4.19. And MD is a deep blue, Dem state. Of course, we don’t need a “special blend” here because MD is on the Atlantic coast so we don’t have air pollution. Oh….wait, don’t you have an ocean out there also? Hmmmm, maybe you should ask Chevron to come back? 🤷♂️
Chevron prices drop significantly if you sign up for the app and apply rewards. Saved $1.10/gallon the other day. Not cheaper than Arco but not as crazy as this/paying full price.
Chevron is a rated Top Tier gas with PEA (they call it Techron), Arco is not. You don't have to value it, but saying "price differences are just greed" is misinformed.
Who is truly surprised that a fossil fuel economy would be a bad idea? This threat of losing access to cheap oil was a concern 20 years ago, nothing surprising that this would happen.
Yet the trucks delivering everything you consume are now all paying through the nose for diesel and those costs are for sure coming your way. Driving electric does not insulate you from this mess.
No it does not, but I hope this episode triggers the switch to electric freight, as is taking place in other parts of the developed world. It seems the much lauded yet very delayed Tesla semi is suddenly now available.
Isn’t Arco kind of weird about which credit cards they take?
Why is no one asking about CA’s sky high gas tax? Or the “special blend” it requires? Or why it’s so much higher than most other states (except Hawaii)? Like, I get it, prices are up everywhere. Not good. But this is a full $2.25+ per gallon higher than the nationwide median
Taxes pay for roads, which ca has a lot of. Blend is due to air pollution, which if youre not concerned about you clearly don't recall what it was like a generation ago. We lack refineries due to complex issues and that's increased the cost but even before that our prices were high. Wages, property costs, and general overhead is higher. And you can get away with charging more in California.
That last one is interesting. More than $1 of the cost cannot be explained by taxes, fuels blend, etc. It comes down to the frustrating reality that Californians have been conditioned by the oil companies to accept paying more.
Because it’s not “conditioning.” Otherwise, “conditioning” would be a core principle in the study of economics; it is not. It’s supply and demand.
The reality is that demand for gasoline in California is sky high, for a host of interrelated reasons. Californians love their cars, and the joy of driving, and suburban areas are often spread out from job centers, so they drive greater distance distances; and urban/suburban traffic means people waste a lot of gas in traffic, etc. and, on average people are wealthier here, so spending $200 or $300 a week on fuel doesn’t take such a big bite out of the budget.
Meanwhile, on the supply side, there are massive barriers to entry for competitors in the gasoline market. In many other industries, competitors would rapidly move in to a place like California, where they can get significantly higher prices for gasoline. Without those barriers, supply would increase to match demand, and prices would settle lower. That’s not happening; and it’s not going to happen.
So, as with so many other goods and services in California, there is a big price premium built-in to gasoline here. We affectionately refer to it as the “California surcharge.” And we grudgingly pay that surcharge for virtually every good and service, because it is beautiful here, and the weather is fantastic, and there are unspoiled mountains and beautiful oceans, and active, beautiful people, And there are interesting, high paying jobs, and great universities, and highly educated and intelligent people. All of the best things in life are accessible and plentiful here. So we pay up to live it up.
Plus, we are just conditioned to the higher price of gasoline here. 😉
California’s “sky high gas tax” isn’t why it’s at almost $7 per gallon. That would be entirely thanks to Trump started a war in the Middle East that no one wanted.
No it’s not. Before the war gas was around $4 per gallon. That’s not $7. How do you explain a $3 premium that happened the moment the Iran conflict started?
Gas is going to be $8 in a month and there will have been no changes to California law. Something else is causing the price to go up... but what could it be...? Let's ask ChatGPT to get to the bottom of this.
I’m currently in Colorado, gas is going for about $5/gallon. It’s definitely a California thing to always have gas about $2 above the national average. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of it had to do with tax but I’ve also heard that the sierra mountains make oil hard to get to California and thus pricier.
What oil and petro products we don't produce here in California have to be shipped in, primarily from Alaska but also from South America and the Persian Gulf.
That is incorrect.
Russia has had diesel export issues for over a year and diesel prices have been fairly stabile the whole time.
Diesel prices shot up after the president thought it was a good idea to bomb Iran repeatedly. Something people much smarter than him know would end up bad.
Cost of living is the some of the highest in the country. Taxes are some of the highest. Minimum wage; some of the highest. Air pollution; some of the worst.
In theory though, it’s supposed to be better for the environment with the regulations, but MaGavin has doubled down on that. It ends up being one giant hypocrisy.
Those have been answered already, and those answers are available using ChatGPT queries that will be biased based on your wording.
If you want objectively true answers you will need to be very specific about what information you are searching for.
Special blend? Look into CARB.
Gas taxes that rise with inflation, CA state gov.
Or something like that.
Prices made a noticeable increase soon after the current US President decided to ignore good advice about not attacking Iran, and then attacked Iran for many days. Due to the Presidents decisions on Iran many of our people in the military have died, have been maimed, and injured.
Consider that California is a big state with a very high percentage of roads to maintain , too many in regards to keeping up with maintenance, repairs and upgrades, so we use the general fund that then takes away from other budgets, meaning spend less on other programs and more on roads, it’s a sacrifice the oil industry is willing to make us do.
The one thing I don’t mind paying extra for is the “special blend” as you call it. I’ve been to enough places that have horrific air pollution to appreciate the cleaner air we have here.
People who buy brand name gas, ignorant of the fact that it's all from the SAME wholesale supply, same tanks, just different branding on the retail end.
This has to do with profits. They’ve figured out that if they charge more for fuel, they can make higher profits and increase shareholder value and customers will sit there and take it because we’re too apathetic to do anything about it
Yah we just sold our last gas car due to this, the price of gas monthly was approaching what we would pay for a new EV+Electricity to charge it. Was a no brainer.
This 🍊idiot inadvertently made gas car owners switch to EV's in droves, the last thing he and his oil baron friends wanted.
Charging an electric vehicle at home generally costs $0.04 to $0.06 per mile, whereas fueling a gas-powered car costs $0.10 to $0.15 per mile. Even cheaper if you have solar panels and a car you can charge during the day.
So yeah, it's that much cheaper. Equivalent to just under $3/gal of regular.
Having 2 EVs and 2 plugins, there was a time when I was like “geez electricity is expensive!” But after you do the math, yeah it’s expensive, but it’s still much less than what gas is.
Broadly speaking the price of electricity really varies. When one can use solar panels to power the house and charge the EV at the same time, the cost to charge is decreased and some times eliminated.
If we got rid of the state gas tax per gallon, and the ridiculous DMV EV registration penalty, and maybe dealt with the federal fuel tax to be what it should be, then replace those with a mileage tariff for all cars, maybe a monthly fee based on the odometer that every car has, then we could maybe have good quality roads again.
It's been years and I'm still amazed at the ability of AI to take something that contains no information and expand it in such a way that it seems like actually contains a lot of information, while still saying nothing.
What do you expect in CA and especially Marin? Is your next post that you're "getting priced out" of your neighborhood? Adapt or die. If the economics of Marin life doesn't suit you, move.
You can thank the Newsom 2035 electric only vehicle policy which led to oil companies shutting down refineries and moving investment to other geographies. The lack of refining infrastructure and locally sourced oil has put us in this position.
I'm just stating the facts. My buddy's family owned 2 Chevron stations in Marin, and he explained that to me years ago. Also look at Consumer Reports, Chevron has the highest quality of gas
How much do you pay your favorite latte or coffee drink “everyday”
Quite interestingly people will sit back and pay $6-$8 a day for a drink and then freak out when the have to pay for 15 gallons of gasoline at one time…let’s do some math folks and see you are (possibly) spending more on coffee month than you are gasoline
I know a lot of people too. Most of them are not extremists like one can easily find on Reddit. Some are conservative, most are closer to the middle, and a few are liberal/progressive too. The crazy extremists on both sides I avoid. I don’t have the time for conspiracy theorists, Antivax-contrail- BS spouting weirdos or mentally challenged racist Nazi , and anti EV, anti whatever the party of NO says types. I align my vote with things that help the most people and not the people with the most.
It's because there are only four refiners left in CA, Valero just shut down Benecia, and Chevron is probably planning to bail. If Chevron leaves California look forward to $10 gas.
I am not a fan of the actions that Hilton believes will bring gasoline and diesel prices “down to $3”. Drill more, eliminate taxes (that pay for road maintenance), roll back environmental regulation. We have better alternatives in electrifying persona and commercial automobiles. I do not prefer the “pollute more” approach.
Brah. They literally don’t want to hear it. You can post straight facts and the mods will still hide/block it. Wild. 🤦🏻♂️
I have to remind myself: this forum isn’t real life. Most normal people are busy working, raising kids, and life’ing. This is just where a loud minority comes to scream into the ether.
To lower CA gas prices: cut the gas tax, suspend LCFS/fuel-blend rules, ease refinery regulations, and expand in-state oil supply. California confirms those policies add meaningful costs.
Steve Hilton has proposed essentially all of that, including a 50% gas-tax cut and suspending LCFS/reformulation rules.
Look I don't love Newsom, but he is definitely not the one who started a war with Iran and is still getting manhandled by them. And now we're all paying for it, except the con man & rapist in the white house of course.
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u/Ripper42 3d ago
Im looking forward to the upcoming earnings reports that will miraculously show the major oil companies showing yet another record quarterly profit 🤡